ANNUAL DIOCESAN SEMINARIANS GATHERING
By Blaise Komboni

Hi friends in Christ, in and around the Diocese of Aitape. Greetings to you all and a happy New Year 2006.

As a yearly programme, the formation of our seminary training begins at St. Martin's Pastoral Centre. Therefore, all the seminarians arrived at the centre on 19th January 2006.

We had a retreat for three days in preparation for two of our brothers, Patrick Possani and Valentine Snukere to receive the ministry of Accolyte. Then on Sunday 22nd January, Bishop Austen Crapp ofm, conferred the ministry to our two brothers.

In the following week, there were various inputs from Bishop Austen, Fr. Martin We-en and Brothers Peter Ryan and James (Patrician). Many thanks to them, in particular to two of our brothers for the very inspiring input on "How to plan to win", or achieve our goal.

I believe that your input in one way or the other has touched and inspired us to plan in order to achieve our goal.

Our motto for the year is; "No Retreat from Team Goal, No Surrender to Pressure."

Here in particular, we would like to express our sincere thanks to Bishop Austen for spending all his precious time with us here. We also would like to extend our sincere thanks to the staff of the Pastoral Centre for providing us with accommodation. Ol trupla man na meri. God iken blesim yupela olgeta long gutpela wok. And thankyou also to Fr. Joe Amanos for spending time with us.

On Wednesday eveing there was a religious gathering at St. Martin's Dinning Hall. The purpose of the gathering was to get to know the Seminarians and of course for the Seminarians to get to know the religious from the Diocese of Aitape. It was really an exciting and joyful experience for all of us.

The Seminarians are: Thomas Moire (Yakamul), Donius Kamib (Yimut), Patrick Possani (Barapu), and Valentine Snukere (Arop).

Those who will be going to Good Shepherd Seminary for Philosophical studies are: 1st Year - Joel Yanamba (Wassisi), Tommy Makain (Lumi), Jerry Einam (Fatima) and Jeffrey Raveru (Sissano), 2nd Year - Kelly Vavena (Barapu), 3rd Year John Bosco (Pes) and Joshua Meru (Serra). Those for Theology at Bomana are: 4th Year - John Tanak (Ulau), 5th Year - Blaise Komboni (Kafle), and 6th Year - Daniel Kwarkla (Seim), Greg Loss (Barapu), Raphael Rainbubu (Sissano) and Zachary Sarim (Malol).

Unfortunately, we don't have any minor seminarians for St. Fidelis College this year. There are a total of 18 Seminarians still under foundation. The harvest is large but the workers are few to gather it in. Therefore, continue to pray for us.